I really have to agree with the points that Shorty is making here...I enjoy films alot - my wife and I make it a point to see a film each week together - after all these years together, it's like a regular date.

The point I want to make is that I can't think of another director or film where the music is such an integral part of the film...I think Leone and Morricone are alot like Lennon and McCartney in that individually, they are good, but together, there's a chemistry that works on just about every level...try to imagine the Ecstacy of Gold scene without the music ..or the Trio without the musical pocketwatch chiming and the flamenco guitar playing and the horns..

I don't regularly purchase soundtrack's, however, I'm not embarrassed to say that I have the CD's to all of Leone's SW's..

You make some very legitimate points and I have to concede that I tend to agree with you.

There are obviously scenes that strain the limits of credibility ie anybody think it's possible to draw a gun three times and holster it while releasing a saddle and catching it before it hits the ground..??..or chug-a-lugging several large glasses of straight whisky and then shooting a shot glass flying through the air..??

I'd never put it on the same level with Leone's other masterpieces, but for entertainment, I definitley enjoyed it..and, of course, Morricone came up with another incredible soundtrack.

I'm inclined to agree with AussieDave that there are alot of very poignant moments in Leone's films and, in particular, TGTBATU.

I agree with every other poster about the scenes they mentioned ie. the Ecstacy of Gold scene with Tuco running through the cemetary, the dying soldier being offered a cigar, Blondie offering a cigar to Tuco, etc..

But for some reason the one that realy gets to me is at the beginning of the Trio scene where Clint has just written the "name" of the person of the grave and he's moved to his place.

Very cautiously Angel Eyes slowly moves by Tuco, the man he had the crap beaten out of earlier and the eye contact between them..it's a very subtle thing, but I like it.

Of course the music starts and one of the great scenes in western history unfolds.

I was very glad that Leone used the musical watch again as he had in the gunfight scene in FAFDM...great touch..!!

The bad news is that even though you're only 20 and think that you may have alot of years in front of you to understand the female mind, it actually doesn't get any easier...!!..

My wife can sit through The Terminator or any other modern action film and really enjoy it...

But there's just something about the fact that a great story with great actors happens to take place in the West of the late 1900's that just turns her off.

It might have something to do with the fact that in order to fully enjoy a movie or a book or a song, for example, there has to be some connection - on some level, between the viewer/listener and the piece of work. You have to identify with some of the lyrics or identify with a particular character in a film and understand his motives.

In TGTBATU, there's not exactly alot of women for her to glom onto. The same with FAFDM. Of course, in FOD and OUATITW, there is a couple of woemn who are important to the plot.

Even now, I can remember walking out of the theater after seeing A Fistful of Dollars in a semi-state of "confusion" and thinking that I had just seen something that was completely different than any other western I had seen up to that time.

And I was only 12 years..!!

The guys in this movie were nothing like Ben Cartright or Little Joe or Matt Dillon with their clean shirts and pressed pants and clean shaven faces.

No - this film was different. This is probably what the west of the 1860's-1880's was really like.

I loved Shane and The Magnificent Seven and The Searchers, but this left those films in the dust.

My wife, unfortunately, has never understood my love of Sergio Leone's masterpieces. I tried to get to sit and watch OUATITW with me and she was dying of boredom during the scene with the opening credits.

Here I am thinking that it's really a piece of cinematic genius with the closeups of Mr. Elam and Woody Strode and the sounds of the train station and a fly buzzing or water dropping and she thinks it's just artsy-fartsy crap.

I love her dearly, but she just doesn't get it.

The showdown between Frank and Harmonica with Morricone's spellbinding soundtrack playing or the The Trio in the The Good, The Bad and The Ugly waiting to shoot it out in Sad Hill cemetary is some of the most incredible and mesmerizing film footage ever shot in the history of film.

I'm Mark..I'm relatively new here, but I would like to say how great I think this forum is and, more importantly, how impressed I am with the depth of knowledge each of you has about Sergio Leone and his incredible films.

I suspect I'm the oldtimer here (I'm like the old bounty hunter, Col. Mortimer and you're all young Blondies), but I hope you won't hold that against me.

Thanks for providing such a great venue where we can all exchange opinions and ideas about Leone and his cinematic masterpieces.

They could try to resurrect the SW, but I don't think they could capture "the magic" again. I think SW's were a product of a time and place by filmakers who are no longer with us.

I remember years and years ago when theree was alot of talk by music promoters trying to get the Beatles back together for a reunion concert. Beatlemania was a phenomenon of the mid-sities and no concert in the 70's could have lived up to the expectations that would have been built up.

It's how I feel about SW's. Leone and Eastwood and Fonda and Wallach and Van Cleef provided the perfect recipe for magic.

I'm really dating myself here, but as a 50 year old, I really grew up during the golden age of westerns on television. It's hard to believe today, but back in the late 50's and early 60's, there were probably a dozen prime time westerns on televsion.

And I loved them all.

But even now I can recall how different "A Fistful of Dollars" was when I first saw it and how difficult it was watching amercian westerns after that. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't look at Bonanza or Gunsmoke the same way anymore. I still enjoyed them, but understood that Sergio Leone's film completely redefined the way I would look at film from that moment on.

A few years later, the cashier at a movie theater in my neighbourhood came up with a line that still brings a smile to my face almost 40 years later. I remember seeing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly about 20 times over a 3 week period and after paying 18 or 19 consecutive times, the cashier just looked at me and said "you like this movie, don't you"..??.

If GBU is the first in the trilogy - and I'm inclined to agree that if, in fact, "Blondie" is the same man in 'FAFDM" and "FOD", then Angel Eyes must have been the evil twin brother of Colonel Mortimer. Or, as they say that everybody somewhere has an identical twin, maybe that's the explanation.

Seriously, regardless of the connections or lack of connections, Leone's films are works of cinematic art in my opinion.